


Gluttony

by HSavinien



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Battle Couple, Canon-Typical Violence, Food, Historical, M/M, POV Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Pre-Canon, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29940939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: Niccolò was told he was a greedy child.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 16
Kudos: 147





	Gluttony

Niccolò was told many times that he was a greedy child. He only remembers being whipped for stealing apricots. He has a picture in his head of his own hands, smaller, grimy from dirt and tree bark, dripping with golden juice; his face, round and unbearded, smeared with stickiness.

He feels like that child now, thirsting for Yusuf's sweetness, furtive in his avarice.

This man - shining as a beacon even in his weariness, beautiful even when they snap at each other in ill temper (two cats, spitting insults in the street) - Niccolò drowns himself greedily, quietly in his light as if it were water in the desert, supping every drop of Yusuf’s temper, good and bad. 

Yusuf is a merchant’s son, he learns, raised in al-Mahdīyah, a city thrust into the Mediterraneo like an outstretched, cupped hand (a place that Niccolò is aware of only because Genova had raided there with Pisa some years after he had been sent to the monastery). Niccolò listens, hoping for better things to know of it. When his voice vibrates through their touch, Niccolò’s heart races, pursuing it even when he cannot catch all the words, still stumbling over the sounds of the lands they travel together. Yusuf needs little encouragement to speak of his home - the simple and everyday things of the city and his family and the rolling hills of Tunis beyond. He speaks of beauty, most of all, and Niccolò’s heart sates itself on his loving descriptions as a wolf on fresh meat. There is cloth, Yusuf says, that shimmers like wild birds’ wings, as delicate as a breath and as sturdy as hide. There are calligraphers and artists drawing all the wonders of the world and its stories down to paper to share with others. He recalls food rich with spices and fruits, musicians breathing ecstasy and pain into their listeners, workers in gold, and silver, and steel who create the most lovely (or deadly) tools. Niccolò thinks of colored glass windows, the light shining like the glory of God come to earth, and imagines them brought to life and sparkling through Yusuf’s marketplace. They travel toward al-Mahdīyah, for lack of a better direction, and Niccolò dreams of seeing Yusuf rambling unhurried through a riot of color and richness.

He does not speak of his own home. For one, Yusuf has been to Genova before, trading. For the other, he sickens to think of the lies and cruelty twining like vines through his memories, the things he grew up learning as good and true twisted sour as spoiled milk into weapons against the helpless.

Yusuf knows many more tongues than he does. Niccolò has only Zenieze and church Latin, and pieces of Greek and Sabir. Yusuf is trying to shape Niccolò’s mouth around more of the last two and Tunis’s Derija, as well as bits of Tamazight, which is only enough the same to scramble in Niccolò’s mind. Yusuf knows more languages than these, but he says they will wait until Niccolò can be sure not to insult people locally first before they move farther afield. Niccolò asks for words of peace; he knows his demeanour can be alarming even to people who do not know the worst of his deeds. He stumbles through and through and through the phrases until Yusuf does not wince at his accent. Niccolò glories in the approval in Yusuf’s eyes when he manages a simple conversation without tripping on his tongue. He tucks the feeling into his mouth, sliding it slow down his throat like honeyed wine.

Niccolò begins to love the night a little, as a time for feasting on Yusuf’s presence. In the moonless grey of the predawn watch, he sits close enough to hear him breathing and that is enough, it is all he could wish. Yusuf, peaceful and content and restful besides him. When they travel, he lags only a little behind, to better keep watch on the road around them while Yusuf marks their way forward. And also it means that he can watch the changing form of Yusuf’s expressive face, stuffing himself on every scrap Niccolò can glean of him, hiding Yusuf inside himself like good bread to nourish his soul.

They travel too near to Tripoli and Yusuf is taken for a spy. It is incorrect in that they had not set out to spy on or for anyone and that Niccolò is as likely to mark their fortifications as Yusuf, but they will hardly scruple to tell everyone they meet what they know of Tripoli’s protectors after the patrol sets upon them. 

Yusuf’s saif is knocked spinning from his hand by a swordsman in mail, and he ducks a swing. Niccolò guts an archer before he can raise his bow and snatches it from his hands as he falls, turning to loose the bolt into Yusuf’s attacker. He drops the crossbow and grabs the dead archer’s short sword to toss into Yusuf’s waiting hand as Yusuf sidesteps another swordsman. They move united, like two hands of the same body, and barely need to call out to each other to track the fight. Yusuf hamstrings a man who would have stabbed Niccolò in the back; Niccolò’s hilt crushes the man’s throat. Niccolò trips a man as he rushes them and Yusuf, saif recovered, takes his sword arm. It is brutal and desperate and all their skill cannot protect them forever. Niccolò slips in the remains of the archer he killed, and a sword blow catches him across the temple. The explosion of pain sends him reeling into darkness. 

He wakes to Yusuf’s arms around him, and Yusuf’s voice wavering, scolding him for carelessness, and he is a glutton, a greedy youth with more desire than sense. He pushes himself up upon his elbows, teeth catching on Yusuf's lips and he devours, gorging himself on Yusuf's mouth as it opens. He tastes a little of salt and a little of blood and those two things, which are vital to life, seem more fitting from Yusuf's tongue than any sweetness Niccolò could imagine. Yusuf's hands cup his cheeks, his mouth moves against Niccolò's, and Niccolò, for the first time in his life, is replete. 


End file.
